ABSTRACT
The great age of Greek colonization is associated with the period of time that stretched from the second half of the eighth century to the first half of the sixth. Greek colonies were sent out westwards to Sicily and southern Italy, even as far as the south coast of France and the east coast of Spain; eastwards to the Thracian coast, the Hellespont and all around the shores of the Black Sea; and southwards to Cyrenaica in modern Libya on the north coast of Africa. There had been an earlier period of Greek colonization during the Dark Ages (1200-900BC) after the fall of the Mycenaean civilization in the twelfth century: the so-called Ionian and Dorian migrations. According to tradition, the Dorians under the leadership of the sons of Heracles, who had been exiled from Mycenae, returned to Greece to regain their inheritance by force, which resulted in the Ionians seeking refuge from them by crossing the Aegean Sea and settling in Asia Minor; but it was not on the same scale nor as well-organized as this later expansion. The end of the Dark Ages ushered in an era that witnessed the rediscovery of long-range travel by sea, widespread trade around the Mediterranean, the re-introduction of writing and the rise of the Greek ‘polis’ or city-state. The eighth century (799-700) was a time of remarkable economic growth, with agricultural development bringing about a general increase in the level of prosperity, especially for the aristocracy, whose political control over their own polis was based on their tenure of the best and the largest amount of land, as well as their ability to defend the state from external threats. Land, especially in a pre-coinage age, was the most valuable of all possessions because it was the sole guarantee of permanent wealth. However, the eighth century also saw the rise of serious social problems in Greece, which were linked directly or indirectly with the land. Scholarly opinion in the past has been deeply split over the causes of
colonization: whether it was land-hunger, arising from over-population, or trade that was the primary cause. These stark alternatives have proved to be unsatisfactory when all the evidence is considered, especially with the growth of archaeological excavations in colonial sites. In addition, there is a need to clarify what is meant by ‘trade’ before it can be offered as a motive
for colonization: whether it is a search for foreign markets for the state’s own exports, or a search for vital resources which the state lacks and can import. It is also vital at the outset to make a clear distinction between a colony (‘apoikia’) and a trading station (‘emporion’), both of which are present from the eighth century. The colony was an independent city from the start, founded at a particular date and by a public act, which had its own government, laws and foreign policy, and whose inhabitants were citizens of the colony and not of the mother-state. The emporion was by contrast a strictly commercial trading post, which was formed spontaneously by traders from different Greek city-states, even by non-Greeks. However, even this clear distinction could at times be blurred: Herodotus refers to the Milesian colonies on the north shore of the Black Sea as emporia (4.24).
